In the 21st century we are still implementing a system that wasn’t ideal even for the 19th century… Despite being in the system as a teacher, then a Primary head and now as an “advisor”, I haven’t really changed my stance of being a “de-schooler” at heart.

Check out the work of Ricardo Semlaer and the Lumiar schools.

Frederick Sandall

I met one guy working for Corus, while researching ‘Creating a Learning Society’, who was being made redundant as not ‘multi-skilled’  and so replaced by a graduate. He had worked for British Steel since leaving school at legal age with no qualifications when jobs in the Welsh valleys were plentiful. He had worked on every process and could diagnose machine faults by sound; the engineers asked him for help. He had 5,000 bedding plants in his garden that he nurtured to give away to friends, had plastered and wired his own house, started an opera/theatre group in his village and reopened and refurbished the local threatre. Etc. Yet he is classified in our learning society as a non-participant. I was in awe of this humble man.

Professor Stephen Gorard